Opinion and fact

I was listening yesterday to something about political bloggers - folks who commentate on politics on their blogs. There is the church equivalent, of course - nothing wrong with that - but my mind wandered and I wondered whether that might not be an easier course for my little blog - a sort of "Entertainment Tonight" of the Episcopal Church - gossip certainly sells.

Gossip does indeed fascinate us. Part of it is a good thing that we like to know about other people but part of it is not so good - that we like to see the holes. When we are talking about our fellow Christians that becomes magnified in both departments,

The Church can be both the kindest and the cruelest of institutions and the places where we come together are important - I suppose that is why thinking about the Bible and bits and pieces each day seems worth doing - not only do they feed our individual life, they feed our corporate life.

News and reflection on who we are are important but when that becomes introspection or gossip it is time to move away from the stuff of doing Church to the stuff of being Church and the stuff of being Church is the stuff of prayer and Eucharist. We all need to be careful that news and opinion about never replace experience of - it is an easy slide into facts and figures instead of relationship.